BREAKING: FAA to briefly close New York traffic center, LaGuardia control tower

March 22, 2020  10H:27  GMT/ZULU

by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington

WASHINGTON  - The Federal Aviation Administration said late on Saturday it will close the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center and New York LaGuardia Control Tower overnight for cleaning after another person tested positive for COVID-19.

An American airline plane is seen at the tarmac after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily halted flights arriving at New York City airports due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York, U.S., March 21, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

The FAA said an individual at La Guardia tested positive, prompting the temporary shutdown of the tower that it said should have minimal impact on flights.

The FAA said New York Air Route Traffic Control Center will close at 11:30 p.m. EDT until 6:30 a.m. for sanitization, while LaGuardia Control Tower will be closed from 11 p.m. EDT until 6 a.m. for sanitization.

The FAA said transatlantic services will be discontinued during the closure at New York Air Route Center and some flights may be held to avoid arriving during the cleaning.

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Earlier on Saturday, the FAA temporarily halted flights arriving at New York City airports and Philadelphia after a trainee at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center tested positive for COVID-19.

The FAA soon lifted the New York area ground stop order Saturday but some flights were delayed while flight management returned to normal. The positive test forced the FAA to close some air space sectors and reroute flights, the agency said.

Flightaware, a flight tracking website, said 600 flights had been canceled on Saturday at John F. Kennedy and Newark airports.

The FAA has had a series of issues this week due to cases of coronavirus at 10 U.S. facilities, forcing the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights and the closing of towers earlier this week at Chicago Midway and Las Vegas.

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More than 1,500 flights have been canceled at Las Vegas, where the tower is still closed, including more than 500 on Saturday. Another 300 flights were canceled at Midway on Saturday, where the tower also remains closed.

The FAA on Friday temporarily closed the tower at New York’s JFK, which led to some flight cancellations, and also shuttered part of the Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center for cleaning after workers tested positive for the coronavirus.

ANALYSIS: Meet the Americans still going out and gathering in large groups

March 19, 2020  10H:41  GMT/ZULU

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters News Analysts, TAOS, New Mexico/NEW YORK

TAOS, New Mexico/NEW YORK, - As people in San Francisco shelter in place and New York City was warned to prepare for a similar measure, some 40 people met in New Mexico for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Wednesday amid White House pleas to avoid groups as the country battles coronavirus.

Officials are telling Americans they must practice social distancing and avoid groups of more than 10 people to slow the spread of the pandemic.

But in many places, especially outside large centers, people are defying the message. Among the reasons: The urgency has been slow to become apparent; they do not believe in the steps; or their livelihoods depend on ignoring the guidance.

Large crowds of people were still swimming and sunning themselves on Florida beaches over the weekend. Scores of people were at Walt Disney World Resort before it closed on Sunday, and in Rogers, Minnesota, more than 300 people attended a benefit for a county worker who received a lung transplant last year.

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“We ended up dropping the food and running because I felt it was irresponsible,” said Melissa Dooley, who catered the Rogers benefit on Saturday, which was held in banquet hall after the original community center venue cancelled. “We were literally in and out in 10 minutes.”

In Taos, New Mexico, the Alcoholics Anonymous group met in a town park on Wednesday morning after the church building they normally use was closed. They spread out on tables underneath a covered concrete picnic area, some standing on the outside to maintain social distancing.

While they were complying with the state’s ban on gatherings of 100 people or more, they were not following the White House guidance to limit groups to 10 people.

“We have to keep meeting,” said one member, who asked not to be named.

A shopper wears a protective mask at the Union Square Greenmarket, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in New York City, NY, U.S. March 18, 2020. REUTERS/Gabriella Borter

As early as 10 days ago, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, began warning about the need to social distance and avoid crowds, then on Sunday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said gatherings of 50 people or more should be cancelled for the next eight weeks.

NO WORK, NO PAY

Just a day later President Donald Trump tightened that guidance, saying people should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people to slow the spread of the virus across the country.

When asked what his message was to people who were not listening, Trump told a news conference on Tuesday: “I’m not happy with those people if they’re not. But, you know, those people are being shouted down by other people ... it’s almost like self-policing.”

In some of the country’s largest and most affected cities, like New York, Chicago and Washington, the message seemed to be getting through, with events cancelled, restaurants and shops closed and many people working from home and avoiding groups.

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Elsewhere, it has been slower to take. In Las Vegas, where casinos were only shut down statewide on Tuesday, local photographer Carrie Pollard is due to photograph a wedding later this week. She said there are supposed to be fewer than 50 guests to comply with local rules and that it would be held at the couple’s home instead of a hotel as originally planned.

“If I don’t work, I don’t get paid,” Pollard, 39, said. “I’m more worried about the economy and financial stability than about the pandemic.”

With coronavirus cases now reported in all U.S. states, Trump said on Wednesday he believed the message to try and stay home was getting through.

Along with avoiding gatherings of more than 10, the White House guidance also asks people to avoid discretionary travel, shopping trips and social visits.

However, Brett Lindell, a 50-year-old props stylist, said he planned to fly to San Francisco this week where he would stay at a friend’s home, and he wasn’t concerned about the risk of contracting the virus.

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“I’m just not worried about any of it,” said Lindell, as he smoked a cigarette with five friends on Wednesday outside a cafe in New York’s East Village neighborhood.

“The thing that I’m most concerned about is the fact that it’s separating people,” Lindell said, though he added that he was trying to be respectful of people who wanted to social distance. “The fear part of it is unbelievable.”

After the massacre in Las Vegas, nothing is set to change--analysis

A deathly silence

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, News Analysts, The Economist Intelligence Unit, Las Vegas

But do not despair. Some progress on gun laws is possible in America

Print edition | Leaders

Oct 5th 2017

AFTER the worst mass shooting in recent American history, in which 58 people were killed and 489 wounded, both the president and the majority leaders in Congress sought to keep talk about new gun laws to a minimum. In Vegas that kind of reticence is called a tell. Had Stephen Paddock used a new technology—an armed drone, say—to kill from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, or had he been an immigrant from the Middle East, lawmakers would be rushing to legislate or tighten borders. But he was a retired white man who used some of the 49 guns he owned, so it is the price of freedom.
There is a weariness to America’s gun debate and the familiar ritual after mass shootings, which are more frequent than in any other rich country. One study counted 166 of them in 14 countries in 2000-14; 133 were in America. Yet, nothing happens, partly because the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has evolved from an armed version of the Boy Scout movement into the foremost mouthpiece for a view of America in which everyone must be armed for their own protection, has a veto in Washington—including over banning “bump stocks” which make semi-automatic guns more lethal.

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If America could not overhaul its gun laws after Sandy Hook, when 20 children aged six and seven were shot at school, then what chance is there now? And even if tighter laws on new guns were introduced tomorrow, there would still be a stock of 300m firearms to reckon with.
Such despair is unworthy of this week’s victims. There are plenty of down-is-up arguments about guns, but the Las Vegas shooting, in addition to being the most deadly, has shown up the old NRA line that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun as the most deceitful of the lot.
Granted, America has chosen permissive gun laws for itself. But the body count does not have to be as high as it is today. Research into murder and suicide suggests that making it just slightly harder to get hold of a weapon can reduce the number of killings, many of which are spontaneous and unplanned.
It ought to be possible to write laws that respect the right to bear arms while banning weapons and modifications that make it astonishingly easy to kill a lot of people quickly. Most Americans favour such laws and would like universal background checks on gun purchases, too (though support for gun control is less fervent than for gun rights). Such a regime would still leave America with an unusually high number of murders, suicides and fatal accidents involving guns, but the disparity with other countries would be less glaring.

The road from Mandalay

Tired of waiting for Congress, some cities have introduced their own laws. In upstate New York, where plenty of people hunt, gun laws are permissive. In New York City those laws do not apply. Anyone who wants to carry a gun down Fifth Avenue must first obtain the permission of the NYPD. New York state tightened its laws after Sandy Hook, in effect banning assault weapons. Four other states did the same, though a further 16 responded by making guns easier to buy or carry.
Las Vegas, which sits in a state with some of the loosest rules in the country, should rewrite its own gun laws, too. Real conservatives, who champion local fixes for local problems, ought to cheer that. Of course it would not completely solve the problem. Cities like Chicago, near states with permissive laws, would still be flooded with guns. But in a country with 30,000 gun deaths a year, even small improvements would save a lot of lives. A rough calculation suggests that in the time between the Las Vegas shooting and the publication of this article, a further 320 Americans lost their life to a bullet.